Vol. 343 No. 4
asked the Minister for Finance the additional anti-evasion work over and above that already being carried out by trained inspectors of tax being pursued by the new anti-evasion unit established last year in the Office of the Revenue Commissioners; and the direct financial yield he expects from an apparent outlay in current salaries of £583,744 per annum.
669.
asked the Minister for Finance the number of trained inspectors of tax within the new anti-evasion unit attached to the Revenue Commissioners.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 668 and 669 together.
The Anti-evasion Branch was set up by the Revenue Commissioners at the end of 1982 with responsibility for the overall co-ordination of anti-evasion work in respect of all the taxes and duties administered by the Revenue Commissioners. All of the staff assigned to that branch at present are general service personnel and already had been engaged on anti-evasion duties in different areas of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners. No additional cost, therefore, arose from this change.
The essential co-ordinating function of the new branch does not readily lend itself to estimation of its expected financial yield. This will tend to be rather more indirect than direct, resulting primarily from the greater efficiency of the anti-evasion campaign through increased liaison between the different taxes and duties areas.
There are at present no inspectors of taxes attached directly to the Anti-evasion Branch. However, the actual investigative work in relation to individual cases is carried out, in the first instance, by inspectors in the various tax districts and, where back duty arises, by inspectors in the special Investigation Branch. In that branch there are 19 specially trained inspectors of whom five are qualified accountants. The back duty settlements completed by the Investigation Branch in 1982 produced a yield of £2,945,945. It is expected that a higher total will be achieved in 1983.
